About Military Archives



The Military Archive is an institution for the protection of archival and documentary material that is created in the work of the Ministry of Defense and the Serbian Army, or is located with them, performs archival activity for the needs of the administrative body responsible for defense, in accordance with the provisions of the Law on Archival Material and Archival Activities ("Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia" No. 6/2020) which regulate the activities and competencies of public archives, regulations on defense and regulations governing the performance of archival activities for the needs of defense and the Serbian Armed Forces.

The Military Archive as a public archive has the task of ensuring the permanent protection of archival material as a cultural asset, its preservation and professional maintenance, use, publication and exhibition in order to preserve the national identity and state interests of the Republic of Serbia, within the scope of archival activity in the Ministry of Defense and the Serbian Army, in order to use it for scientific and professional research, for the needs of organizational units of the Ministry of Defense and the Serbian Army, state bodies, legal entities and individual persons.

The Military Archive collects, preserves, organizes and processes archival material of military provenance created during the existence and the work of:
  • Army of the Principality / Kingdom of Serbia,
  • Army of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians, i.e. Kingdom of Yugoslavia,
  • Other armed forces and military formations from the Second World War, from the territory of the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia,
  • After-war archival material of the Yugoslav Army/Yugoslav People’s Army, as well as competent federal bodies for the national defense from former Socialist Federal Republc of Yugoslavia,
  • Armed Forces of Yugoslavia / Armed Forces of Serbia and Montenegro, which succeeded the Yugoslav People’s Army, and
  • Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Serbia and the Serbian Armed Forces.
Today, the Military Archives keeps around forty million sheets of archival material in the total amount of around 7300 long meters. Most of the archival material is in good condition and is available for use in the Military Archives reading room. The oldest archival material, as well as material that is damaged, or in poor condition, have been digitized or are in the process of digitization, and are not released for use, except in the digital form.
 
Military archives 1 Ratka Resanovica St, Zarkovo 11133 Belgrade vojniarhiv@mod.gov.rs